FISHING BALLS TO THE WALL IN COLORADO, THE OLD STOMPING GROUNDS

The Dream Stream section of the South Platte River

This past week was spent on my last trip to work the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado after 21 years being involved in this event as a participant, announcer and event specialist. The weekend went mighty fine with exception of one dickhead who thought he was a comedian at the last awards ceremony I presented at the games, but I gotta tell you, it's pretty difficult to get through a big event in public anymore without some douchebag trying to jump in an make a complete asshole of himself, which this guy managed to do. Despite the weekend of "work" while wrapping up my announcing career, it was indeed Balls to the Wall fishing when I had some free time to chase trout in the streams that were fishable during a tumultuous runoff season which is typical for this time of year in Colorado's high country. The third week of June was always the benchmark for peak runoff and the anticipation of exploding caddis hatches which are just around the corner.

On my way up the I-70 corridor I stopped and fihed one of my favorite pools on the Idaho Springs section of Clear Creek, right nest to the interstate, however the river was still pretty high and very cold and despite fairly clear water, I could not hook up on the surface, which was my jam ther.

 I had to do some driving to get to the fishable waters which included the Dream Stream section of the South Platte river close to my four acres of property I've owned in the town of Hartsel since the 1990's.

Fortunately I still have many old friends from both Summit and Eagle Counties from my days ski bumming, playing music and guiding folks fly fishing, which made it easy to find willing and able crash pads during the week when I was not at The Hythe in Vail for work. The McDonnels put me up the first night I was in Summit, we had a great dinner and watched the Nuggets destroy the Miami Heat in Game Three of the championship series and the next morning I woke ealry and drove to the South Platte and my property.

Stream flows were super low at 38cfs which made finding fish very difficult as they simply were not up in the river yet, however, and the weir just down stream from the lower parking area, as I walked back to the rental car, a midge and BWO hatch was going on and there were a couple of dozen fish rising to emergers and adult mayflies and midges. I was able to take the better part of a dozen fish out of this pool with the Larry G Emerger pattern that has been my go to for decades. It was a great day on the waters I fished regularly in the 80's and 90's. I drove to Vail for the weekend to work. Stayed in Eagle with good friend Courtney Wuwuwuwuwuzup Gregory and his new family and headed to Vail the following morning.

 

Brook Trout, really small brook trout. These ponds helped my team in the Copper Mountain Golf Trout Tournament win my last year participating as we raised a pile of money for the Jimmy Huega Foundation.

     After working the games I checked water flows in Eleven Mile Canyon to see if it would be fishable, it was almost too fishable with flows in the low 40s, but I decided this would be my best bet to find big fish sipping small surface flies within a reasonable driving distance of two hours on my last day to fish my old haunches. It had been 30 plus years since I'd been in the canyon, It is still a spectacular spot to throw at technically difficult fish at very low water flows. The water flows are controlled by the Denver Water Board, and with so much rain in Colorado this spring, there is no call for water, hence the super low flows.

The drive up Eleven Mile Canyon is spectacular

The fishing was technical and perfect. I fished to one fish before I finally got the bastard to take a fly on the surface, hooked and lost, I considered it a huge win as these fish were rising once every 4-5 minutes with no real hatch to speak of from 7:30am until 11:30 am when the weather began to turn for the worse. I hooked and lost one more fish, another win during the session. It was a classic battle of small bug verses terribly difficult fish to fool in tough conditions

I scrambled out of the canyon, packed up and headed to Summit County to meet up with and stay with old skiing buddy Joey Klein on his birthday. The drive over Wilkerson Pass was super sketch with hail, rain, sleet and rain all mixed together and throw in a little lightening.

I made it to Summit and We grilled up some big ol steaks with baked taters, drank a bottle of wine and watched the Nuggets roll to their first World Championship. It was great way to wrap up an awesome weekend of work, fishing and visiting with friends.